Metallica: This Monster Lives

by Joe Berlinger

  01/21/01

  INT. FROM 627, RITZ-CARLTON HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO - DAY

  JAMES: I just think [making this record] is going to be fun.

  KIRK: Yeah.

  JAMES: I mean, that’s the part I’m looking forward to: no bad vibes. Just go in loose and completely relaxed, with a smile, and just kick major ass. I mean, just having no luggage, no weights on you, no nothing-just free, really free, and just going for it.

  KIRK: Like a vacation.

  JAMES: Completely.

  KIRK: Should be like a goddamn vacation.

  PHIL: One thing I wanted to ask you guys: What do you think about becoming-how should I say it?-more in tune to one another, more like a family, more sensitive, more-dare I say it loving toward each other? Is that going to take the edge off?

  LARS: Exactly. I was going to touch upon that.

  PHIL: Is anybody afraid of that?

  LARS: I was actually going to say, I think it’s going to go in the opposite direction. I can’t really hear much of the record yet, but I just-you know, the words “brutal” and “ugly” and “come to mind. We’ve had some fun with a lot of blues-based stuff and backbeats and that kind of stuff, and I just hear ugliness, real ugliness, and really just fucked-up shit. Ugly sounds and nasty energies and just weird kind of … RRRRRRRGGGGH!

  JAMES: Like I said, fun.

  In the fifty-year history of rock and roll, has any band besides Metallica endured such intense and prolonged group therapy? Probably not. Has any other band lasted this long without trying, at least once, to make music collaboratively? I doubt it. As weird as it was for these rock and rollers to have daily therapy sessions, it was weirder that they’d lasted twenty years without having a spontaneous jam session.

  In a way, this unwillingness to jam is what landed Metallica on Phil’s couch. Any Metallica fan knows that the band has always had a rigid hierarchy and an entrenched creative process: James and Lars solicited ideas (mostly riffs) from the others; James and Lars together wrote, arranged, and assembled basic tracks of the songs, which they presented to the others; Kirk added his solos and Jason added bass lines. Kirk had always accepted the status quo, but Jason, whose “second-class citizen” status in Metallica ran much deeper than Kirk’s, bristled at it.1 To deal with these feelings, he began his Echobrain project with a couple of young musicians he’d met in his neighborhood. As Echobrain evolved into a real band, Jason defied Metallica’s rule (really James’s) that no band member spend significant time with another band. James didn’t want to bend the rule, but neither did he want to change the way Metallica made music by giving Jason more input. Jason’s departure underscored that this impasse was untenable if Metallica were to remain a healthy unit.

  For the first time in Metallica’s history, song lyrics were created democratically. (Courtesy of Bob Richman)

  I wouldn’t be surprised if James and Lars found the idea of jamming—and, more broadly, of opening themselves up to input from others—to be more frightening than therapy. You could always just clam up and recede into yourself in therapy, letting others do the talking. To take the same tact while writing music meant losing control of the music. Even within the tight James-Lars nexus, the two Metallica leaders had long ago reached an implicit understanding that neither was allowed to criticize the other’s contributions. This created an almost constant state of tension, as Bob Rock discovered when he came aboard to produce Metallica’s 1991 self-titled breakthrough. “It was horrible,” he recalls. “It was always just James and Lars, and I was between them. I never knew what to do. They were always on opposite ends, with Kirk trying to keep the peace. Jason was the outsider, and they would just squash him.”

  Except for the part about Jason, who was gone by the time we arrived on the scene, that scenario should be familiar to anyone who has seen Monster. As our film makes clear, old habits were very difficult to break. After more than a decade on the front lines, Bob was glad they were at least trying. “It was definitely a welcome change. Before, I always felt like I was being thrown together with these monsters. It was almost like going to war.” He laughs. “They’re like great soldiers. They’re monsters and horrible people, but they have another side that’s very lovable.” Realizing they needed to shed their old personas, they had no choice but to become, in Bob’s words, “four guys fooling around in a garage.”

  It certainly seemed to me that the love was flowing during those early Presidio sessions. You could really feel it from Kirk. As he says in the film, he was thrilled that James was opening up the lyric-writing process.2 Metallica really did seem like a young band, a little shy with each other but thrilled by their collective buzz. Their childlike enthusiasm was genuinely touching.

  So why did I have the sneaking suspicion that what I was hearing was, to use one of Metallica’s favorite derisive terms, pretty “stock”?

  I mean, the music sounded okay, but it seemed to occupy some bland middle ground. It didn’t sound like the old Metallica or a compelling version of a new Metallica. I questioned my judgment, however, because the guys were so excited. Besides, what did I know? By the time we finished making Monster, I would feel like a Metallica expert, but at this point my knowledge of the music was mostly limited to what we used in the Paradise Lost films. I’d gone through a brief Black Sabbath phase in my youth, although I was always more into the Stones and the Dead. More recently, my tastes had run more to the Cure and the Clash. Mine may not have been an expert opinion, but I did have some idea of what Metallica were capable of, owing to the songs we had used in Paradise Lost and my work with the band on VH1’s FanClub. It never occurred to me that what I was hearing at the Presidio would one day evolve into an album as great as St. Anger, but my main impetus in making a Metallica movie had never been the music. I was more interested in the disconnect between their onstage image and who they were as people. I was fascinated by their business savvy and also by the complex dynamic between James and Lars. I wanted to make a film that would tackle stereotypes in much the same way as Brother’s Keeper and Paradise Lost had done.

  I was, however, concerned about the quality of the music inasmuch as it pertained to the job we were hired to do. Remember, we were being paid to put together an infomercial about the making of an album. We hoped somehow to elevate the project by delving into Metallica’s personal lives, but that was really a secondary consideration. I was glad to be working again and didn’t want to screw this up. If this album wasn’t headed for greatness—and it didn’t really sound to me like it was—making a decent promo film would be that much harder.

  To the extent that I did dream of this film becoming more personal and less promotional, I was less bothered by the music than I was by the lack of focus and often superficial nature of much of the therapy. Although I had been immediately struck by the parallels between what these guys were going through and the situation with Bruce and me, after several sessions I began to feel that they were barely scratching the surface. I had recently spent a few sessions with a therapist in New York, to help me deal with the helplessness and despair caused by the Blair Witch 2 fallout, so it was incredible—not to mention inspirational—to see guys like this even attempt group therapy Still, I couldn’t help noticing that they were circling around important issues, veering off into a million tangents, and issuing “breakthroughs” like “I’m really getting to know you.” To make the film we really wanted to make, we’d have to find a way to make the therapy work cinematically. As a filmmaker who mentally edits during shooting, I was starting to realize the challenge of presenting meandering, discursive conversations with no real resolution in such a way that would be interesting to watch while remaining true to their essence.

  I was particularly concerned about James in this regard. He just wasn’t saying much in the sessions. It wouldn’t do to have a Metallica film where the band’s leader stays silent. James didn’t look bored—he looked positively uncomfortable. It began to dawn on me that the therapy, though at times apparently su
perficial, was dredging something up in James. I couldn’t say just what. But if you go back to the earliest therapy scene in Monster—the one where Lars wonders aloud if our cameras will destroy the intimacy of therapy, to which James responds, “What intimacy? What the fuck are you talking about?”—you get a sense of what James was going through. He’s smiling, but it’s a smile that says he’d rather be anywhere but there. Even outside room 627, you could tell that James was uncomfortable. When the band sits around patting each other on the back about the great music they’re making, James is silent. “You don’t seem too psyched,” Lars says.

  All I could decipher was that something wasn’t quite right with James. Much later, when it was time to begin editing Monster, I was struck by how much James’s unease is obvious on-screen. Perhaps there is something to Phil’s belief that our cameras brought out the truth. James, though he was able to resist this pressure, was nonetheless no better able to remain perfectly mute. He might not have been talking out loud, but our cameras were listening hard.

  I don’t think I was any better at keeping my insecurities to myself. I still had no idea that we were capturing so much emotional complexity. I was afraid we weren’t capturing much of anything, and toward the end of that second week I was determined to be proactive. I decided that if the therapy and studio material wasn’t sufficiently compelling, then we needed to go deeper. One day as we began filming, I heard Lars mention a meeting he’d had with Bob the night before, to discuss their thoughts on how the new music was progressing. A few minutes later, as Lars sat behind his drums warming up, I walked up and tried to get his attention. At first he didn’t see me—or pretended not to. I waved a little to get his attention.

  “Hey, Lars, I heard you and Bob had a meeting about the new album.”

  He stared straight ahead, pumping his feet on his trademark dual-kick drum setup. “Uh-huh.”

  “You know, you really need to tell us about everything that goes on that we might want to film.”

  “Okay” he said tentatively.

  Cinematographer Bob Richman shoots James. (Courtesy of Annamaria DiSanto)

  James with his daughter, Cali (Courtesy of Bob Richman)

  “I mean, if we’re going to make an effective documentary about you guys making this album, we need to—”

  He swiveled around to face me. “Hey!” That’s all he said. Then he swiveled back and kept pumping his feet. I took that to mean, “I’m Lars Ulrich, the drummer of fucking Metallica, the biggest band in the fucking world, and don’t tell me when to invite you to tag along with a camera.” All he needed to say was that one dismissive word: “Hey!”

  The band decided to take a three-week vacation after the second week. There was a small impromptu party at the Presidio studio on the last night before the break. James cut out right after work was done, barely saying goodbye, but everyone else stuck around. Sean Penn, a close friend of Lars’s, had been hanging around the studio that day, although he made it very clear that he wasn’t interested in appearing in the film. (“I don’t want to be like Warren Beatty in Truth or Dare.”) Someone handed me a bottle of vodka.

  I was hanging out with rock stars and a movie star, kind of buzzed at two A.M. when Lars walked up and presented me with one of those ethical quandaries that come with making documentaries.

  “You want to go hit some bars with me and Sean?”

  Did I? Well, yeah, sure I did. Maybe Lars was trying to make up for snapping at me, although it was clear that we were all off the clock, that this would just be a social call, a chance to hang out, not something we’d film. I pondered this invitation for a second and decided its social nature was exactly what made me uneasy.

  SOME KIND OF MONSTER

  The first time we see Metallica at the Presidio in Some Kind of Monster, they improvise over a riff played by James. As the jam gets going, he ad-libs vocals by lifting some lyrics from the Metallica song “Fuel.” That happened on our first day of shooting at the Presidio; that riff was literally the first new Metallica music we documented. It’s easy to miss it in its embryonic form, but that riff eventually became the song “Some Kind of Monster.” Over the next couple weeks, “Monster” became the first real song to emerge in a rough state. Bob Rock played a special role in its creation by suggesting the lyrical theme and zeroing in on the riff that eventually became the song’s chorus.

  As soon as “Some Kind of Monster” began to coalesce, I thought it would make a good title for our film (even though at that point our “film” was still officially an infomercial). The titles for our other movies have emerged very late in the filmmaking process, so I soon grew bored with this one, even as it began to catch on with Bruce and the rest of the crew. Toward the end of filming, I started leaning toward Madly in Anger, a line from “St. Anger.” But during the editing process, we all began to notice that Some Kind of Monster was a perfect title, considering what Metallica was going through, especially James’s struggle with the “beast” that was his band. So the title stuck.

  The song would continue to evolve throughout the recording of St. Anger. As much as I like the final incarnation, I prefer the Presidio version. There’s a rawness to it that’s missing from the finished song, which I think sounds a bit too manipulated and “produced.” I think my preference is partially due to the emotional response the original song triggers in me. It takes me back to those days at the Presidio, when I was so thankful to be working again and excited to be in the presence of people who seemed like they knew the secret of creating art as a collaborative unit. Of course, I—and they—had a lot to learn.

  “Monster” was a natural choice to play over our closing credit roll, though it was ultimately too monstrous for us: the song clocks in at over eight minutes, five of which were edited out so that its length matched our end credit sequence.

  As I said before, I’m all for documentary filmmakers spending time with their subjects. But as with any other meaningful relationship, that trust has to be earned. After months of bonding with the Wards while making Brother’s Keeper, we knew we’d reached a turning point when Roscoe named some of his turkeys after us. With Monster, we were dealing with celebrities, an entirely different situation. I really didn’t consider Lars to be a personal friend at that point—a professional acquaintance, sure—so to hit the town would have made me feel like a fan being tossed a bone by a rock star, which is the last way I wanted Metallica to perceive me. If we were to have a relationship, it would have to be based on mutual respect. There are several people in Metallica’s inner circle who started out as fans. They’re now part of the team, but some of their old roles endure—kind of like a former assistant who, despite a promotion, is still treated like an assistant by the boss. I felt like the only way Bruce and I were going to get the access we needed was if Metallica saw us as professional filmmakers, not celebrity hangers-on.

  So, while it took a lot of willpower, I told Lars, no, thanks, I had a plane to catch the next day (which was true). A part of me felt like I had blown a fun opportunity but I told myself that if a friendship was going to develop, this wasn’t the way to start. I also wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t here because I was into those sorts of perks.

  I flew back to New York the next day with a lot to think about. It had been an interesting couple of weeks, but I still felt I needed to make sure that if I continued with this project, it would be for the right reasons—not just because I needed the money or wanted to work again. I conceived of this as a modest project, but it was still one that would carry my name. After Blair Witch 2, this was a very important consideration.

  I also owed it to the band and its management to be up front about why we thought it was important to film the therapy and other personal stuff if our assignment was to do a promotional film. I wanted to be completely honest with everybody while figuring out a way to nudge the film in other directions.

  There was also the issue of Bruce’s involvement. Besides the fact that collaborating with him was the ethi
cal thing to do, since we had gotten to know Metallica together, I knew that our collaboration would make it a better film. We had gotten along really well the past few weeks. But we had never worked out the exact parameters of our new working relationship. I was thinking a lot about the quandary James had gotten himself into with Jason, unable to relinquish control but not able to let go completely. I could relate. As it turned out, Bruce made it really easy, perhaps anticipating how much I loathe confrontation. We had an unspoken understanding that we wouldn’t sweat the details until later. Although we still hadn’t discussed our two-year separation, during which we closed down our production company all that mattered was that he was back onboard.

  We drew up a provisional budget with Metallica’s managers in New York. Elektra Records, the band’s label, would provide all the funding, with 50 percent of the cost taken out of Metallica’s album royalties. We spent the break making preparations for the film, firming up our crew, working out a schedule, and generally preparing ourselves for the chaotic state our lives enter when we make a movie. The filmmaking team of Berlinger and Sinofsky was back in business. It felt really good to be working together again—kind of like getting back together with a girlfriend you regretted dumping.

  We flew back to San Francisco to rejoin Metallica as the guys returned from vacation. As we checked into our hotel, it felt like we’d never missed a beat—making dinner plans, deciding what we needed for the next day’s shoot, making sure Bruce had a refrigerator in his room for his diabetes medication, getting the candy taken out of my minibar because I have no willpower. It had been two years since we’d been on a shoot together, but as Bob would say to James deep in this film’s future, it felt like the next day.

  As we retired to our rooms, we actually shot each other a thumbs-up. We didn’t dare say it, but we knew we were thinking the same thing: Please, let something bad (but not too bad) happen to Metallica to make our film interesting.